Time to End Congressional Oversight of Intell?

Quoting the Washington Post's David Ignatius, the brilliant Gabriel Schoenfeld suggests it's time to end the experiment of Congressional oversight of our intelligence operations:

The intelligence committees have become politicized. Members and staffers encourage political vendettas against intelligence officers they don't like, as happened when [CIA Director Porter] Goss brought his congressional aides with him to the CIA. The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has become a political football; so has negotiation over legal rules on intercepting foreign communications, one of the nation's most sensitive activities. The bickering has turned the intelligence world into a nonstop political circus, to the point that foreign governments have become increasingly wary of sharing secrets.

Congressional oversight was a "radical idea" when it was introduced in response to the abuses of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon years. Back then, Ignatius notes, "[s]ome experts questioned whether it was realistic to ask elected officials to sign off on the work of intelligence agencies - which, when you strip away all the high-minded language, basically involves the systematic violation of other countries' laws. Intelligence agencies steal other nations' secrets, bribe their officials into committing treason, intercept their most private conversations."

Those skeptics seem to have been proved right. At a time when our intelligence agencies are the crucial front in the war we are facing, we cannot afford to have it managed by a "political circus." The time has come to bring an end this state of affairs - with extreme prejudice.

h/t: MW

Quoting the Washington Post's David Ignatius, the brilliant Gabriel Schoenfeld suggests it's time to end the experiment of Congressional oversight of our intelligence operations:

The intelligence committees have become politicized. Members and staffers encourage political vendettas against intelligence officers they don't like, as happened when [CIA Director Porter] Goss brought his congressional aides with him to the CIA. The new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran has become a political football; so has negotiation over legal rules on intercepting foreign communications, one of the nation's most sensitive activities. The bickering has turned the intelligence world into a nonstop political circus, to the point that foreign governments have become increasingly wary of sharing secrets.

Congressional oversight was a "radical idea" when it was introduced in response to the abuses of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon years. Back then, Ignatius notes, "[s]ome experts questioned whether it was realistic to ask elected officials to sign off on the work of intelligence agencies - which, when you strip away all the high-minded language, basically involves the systematic violation of other countries' laws. Intelligence agencies steal other nations' secrets, bribe their officials into committing treason, intercept their most private conversations."

Those skeptics seem to have been proved right. At a time when our intelligence agencies are the crucial front in the war we are facing, we cannot afford to have it managed by a "political circus." The time has come to bring an end this state of affairs - with extreme prejudice.